Response from U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky on premise of Michael Moore's 'Sicko'

After seeing Michael Moore’s “Sicko” about national health care and why the U.S. doesn’t have it, I wrote to U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky a while back because she’s a co-sponsor of the U.S. National Health Insurance Act.

While her response doesn’t respond to what I wrote to her in particular and seems to be a canned response, she does explain some more detail about where she stands on this and what she’s doing with it:

February 26, 2008
Adam Matthew Fendelman

Dear Adam:

Thank you for contacting me to express your support for H.R. 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act. I appreciate hearing from you, and I strongly agree with you that we need to enact legislation guaranteeing every person in our country access to affordable, comprehensive and quality medical care.

I am a cosponsor of H.R. 676. One in three people under age 65 - over 80 million people - were uninsured for part or all of the last two years. Nearly 47 million Americans - including 9 million children - were uninsured in 2005. Being uninsured often means that medical care is not available until preventable or easily treatable conditions turn into critical and costly health problems. The Institute of Medicine estimates that 18,000 Americans die each year because they lack coverage. Over half of all Americans - many of them with health care coverage - are worried that they may not be able to afford care if they or a family member becomes seriously ill, and medical bills are the number one cause of personal bankruptcies. We are the only industrialized country in the world that doesn’t guarantee access to health care as a right, which is one reason that the World Health Organization ranks us as 37th in providing quality care to consumers.

We can and must do better. I am working closely with Representative John Conyers, the author of H.R. 676, in the fight for comprehensive health care for all.

Again, thank you for taking the time to get in touch on this very important issue. I hope that you will let me know whenever I may be of any help to you.

Sincerely,
Jan Schakowsky,
Member of Congress

Our poll on this issue can be found here.